The IRA’s ruling army council that once directed its campaign of violence is no longer operational, a major report revealed today.
The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) declared that the IRA has disbanded its paramilitary structures and relinquished the leadership necessary to wage war.
The watchdog’s declaration today that the IRA campaign is “well and truly over” comes ahead of crucial talks between unionists and republicans aimed at securing the future of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.
Prior to the report’s publication, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Peter Robinson said his party would demand complete removal of the IRA’s Army Council to secure political progress.
Today the IMC 12-page report said: “We are aware of the questions posed about the public disbandment of (Provisional Irish Republican Army’s) PIRA’s leadership structures.
“We believe that PIRA has chosen another method of bringing what it describes as its armed struggle to a final close.
“Under PIRA’s own rules the Army Council was the body that directed its military campaign.
“Now that that campaign is well and truly over, the Army Council by deliberate choice is no longer operational or functional.”
It added: “This situation has been brought about by a conscious decision to let it fall into disuse rather than through any other mechanism.”
"We now have a context where there are no longer the emotional drivers which caused the IRA to be resurrected in 1969 and the leadership which created and moulded the modern-day PIRA has turned its interest and attention exclusively to politics as the means of furthering its objectives."
The report concluded: “The mechanism which they have chosen to bring the armed conflict to a complete end has been the standing down of the structures which engaged in the armed campaign and the conscious decision to allow the Army Council to fall into disuse.
“By taking these steps PIRA has completely relinquished the leadership and other structures appropriate to a time of armed conflict.”
Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dermot Ahern said the report's conclusions were "very positive".
"This report demonstrates not only that PIRA has gone away, but that it won?t be coming back. The IMC could not have been more unequivocal in its conclusion that the provisional movement is now irreversibly locked into following the political path."
Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward said the report confirmed that the IRA had met its commitment.
“It has abandoned all terrorist structures, its recruitment and PIRA’s so-called ‘military’ departments have ceased to function and have been disbanded,” said Mr Woodward.
“As the IMC made clear, ‘the leadership structures have definitely ceased to function in the way they did during the time of conflict’.
“Today’s report confirms this has happened.”
The British and Irish Governments had asked the IMC, made up of security experts and politicians from the UK and Ireland, to compile a special report on the status of IRA structures.
Prior to the official release of the report today, it was speculated that the IMC would conclude that the Army Council remained in place, but was not engaged in any illegal activity.
Today in its report the IMC, which monitors paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland, said the IRA’s redundant structures were gradually disappearing, but said it did not expect any announcements from the republican movement as that process concluded.
“We believe that for some time now it has given up what it used to do and that by design it is being allowed to wither away,” said the report.
“There have not been and we do not foresee that there will be formal announcements about the disbandment of all or parts of the structure.”
It added: “In our view the way in which the leadership has adopted an entirely different course, disbanded terrorist-related structures and capacity and engaged in different activities, and members have moved on to other things, means that the PIRA of the recent and violent past is well beyond recall.”
But MEP Jim Allister, who left the DUP over its decision to share power with Sinn Féin last year, condemned the IMC finding.
"Today’s IMC report, despite all its Jesuitical verbiage, is unable to say the IRA Army Council is gone – in spite of the fact that the DUP told us it would have to go before they entered government with their political wing.
"The IMC's pitiful whitewashing comments, following the brutal murder of Paul Quinn, demonstrated to all who were interested that it had become yet another pawn of the political process. Today's effort confirms its compliant role," Mr Allister added.